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G9 pano shots

I've been playing around with the G9 pano feature while on vacation in Balize
and while on board the ship we took there, and am pleased with the way it
functions and that you can shot a full series of shots in either direction, i.e panning
left or right. Here is the first, a pano of the main plaza at the Mayan Palace in Balize,
about two hours in land from the coast. Ignore the text overlay I haven't gotten my key
for the software yet so it was made with the trial version.

Could you tell us more....exactly how you did this? Did you use a special tripod with a panoramic head, etc etc? I'd really like to know what the procedure is, in detail, for creating a panoramic photo like this with a camera like the G9. Might be time to upgrade from my G2. I've wanted to get into panoramic photography and this looks really good!

I've been playing around with the G9 pano feature while on vacation in Balize
and while on board the ship we took there, and am pleased with the way it
functions and that you can shot a full series of shots in either direction, i.e panning
left or right. Here is the first, a pano of the main plaza at the Mayan Palace in Balize,
about two hours in land from the coast. Ignore the text overlay I haven't gotten my key
for the software yet so it was made with the trial version.
RM

Looks like a great spot for the G9, Jeff.

I'm also interested in how it works. There seems to be some optical distortion in the upper corners. Is that from the lens? ItÔÇÖs nothing that canÔÇÖt be cropped out while still preserving the pano, but it would be great to get the full effect.

Basically the Canon G9 has a feature that allows you to take a picture
then it shows you the image on the screen with a blank area next to
it that displays the next image (what the camera is pointing at) live
as you pan the camera back and forth when you get the next one lined
up with some overlay you snap that and the display then moves to the
next frame and you repeat. Not sure how many frames you can take
but I took as many as 7 and it kept going.

I just hand held the camera, and just alined it horizontialy as best I could,
no tripod or pan head though that would help I'm sure. I did note that the
more overlay between frames the more it tends to bend the image (note the
left hand side is curved somewhat more than the right, that is because I had
more overlay in the first few shots. I will upload the individual shots this evening.

I haven't seen that in other
cameras, but I'm sure there are others that do this.

That makes more sense to me. It's not optical distortion it's the Pixtra software stretching the image to fill the pano frame.

-Alex

Hmmm, now that you mention it, I'll try cropping the second shot in the series
before running it thru with the registered version and see if that makes a differance.
It was somewhat hard framing the overlays while trying to maintain
the horizontial framing since it was done hand held, so the second frame is
a least half overlay of the first, the rest were maybe 1/4 overlay from the preceeding frame
as shot.

second version, using the registered version of the software
and cropping the second photo in the series to cut down on
the overlayed area. Seems to have improved it a bit. Not quite
as much curvature in the left of the pano.

Pano number three Sky shot from ship

this one was a good bit harder to stitch, I had to process the files
some to lighten them and get them more even in tone as I was
shooting at dusk and as I panned away from the sun light it got
darker, plus with the rocking of the shp the horizon was tilted in
each shot, so I had to straighten them. since the ISO was set to
auto you can see the picture getting more noisy as it pans to the
right. Plus the fact that the clouds kept changing shape (darn them!)
I had to manually aline the shots in the stitching software. with some
more work I could probably get a better result, still nor to bad for my
first attempt with this set of images, five in all.